According to the prior art, several network architectures are known. They are based on a centralised or non-centralised architecture. Hence, the WiFi system (based on the standard IEEE 802.11a) has a non-centralised architecture with a contention channel access. The WiMax system (based on the standard IEEE 802.16) has a centralised architecture that enables a more suitable quality of service to be implemented for certain applications. A primary network of the wired type can be connected to a wireless network of the WiFi or WiMax type via a dedicated station.
FIG. 1 shows a primary communication network 110 and a secondary communication network 111 connected together by a base station 10.
The network 111 comprises remote stations (RS) 12 to 14 communicating with the base station 10 via a wireless medium (for example radio) 11 for example according to a classic architecture of the WiFi or WiMax type, the medium being shared between all the remote stations. Each remote station is connected to one or more host nodes (H). Hence, to illustrate, the station 12 is connected to two nodes 16 and 17 via a switch 15 via wired links. Likewise, the station 13 (respectively 14) is connected directly to a host 18 (respectively 19) via a wired link.
Within the network 110, the entire bandwidth is shared between the nodes belonging to this network. Likewise, the stations 12 to 14 share the bandwidth offered by the medium 11. Assuming that the bandwidth of the network 110 is greater than the one offered by the medium 11, the quality of service enabling the transmission (respectively the reception) of data of a node of the network 110 toward (respectively from) a node of the network 111 is not guaranteed.
Hence, such architectures based on a medium using the WiFi or WiMax standards do not enable a sufficient quality of service to be managed effectively for certain applications. In other words, the techniques implemented in such networks do not enable a minimum quality of service to be guaranteed for all the applications, for example for communications of the video type transmitted from a primary network to a secondary network whose transmission capacities are not as great as those of the primary network.